


5 Times Jox Trick-or-Treats (and one time they do not)

by kbirb



Series: Wolfsong Halloween Exchange Pieces [1]
Category: Green Creek Series - T.J. Klune
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autumn, Green Creek Series, Halloween, M/M, Ravensong - Freeform, Trick or Treating, Wolfsong, fall - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 16:22:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16411859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kbirb/pseuds/kbirb
Summary: Ox doesn't celebrate many holidays... Until Joe convinces him to.





	5 Times Jox Trick-or-Treats (and one time they do not)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lipsstainedbloodred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lipsstainedbloodred/gifts).



> Being a kindergarten teacher takes up a LOT of brain space and creative energy and time so I managed to:  
> A) Forget the timeline of Wolfsong/Ravensong/Green Creek  
> B) Hit 500 writers blocks  
> C) Blink and miss the entire month of October
> 
> Anyway... Chels I really hope you enjoy this! Happy Howl-o-ween! May be a bit of an altered timeline - I also may be the worst fan, I just cannot remember details nor did I look them up much... So.... 
> 
> Slight AU? I just love Halloween? AH???? I don't even know. I mainly say this because I just don't know how many Halloweens would have occurred between major events in the book, so I threw Halloweens in willy nilly.
> 
> Example: Ox and Jessie get one Halloween before he finds out about the Bennetts and one Halloween after. Is that how this would work? Probably not. Does it in my little slice of AU canon? Yes. Yes it does. Because I can't recall how time passes in Green Creek.

I. **you’ll be batman.**

Ox is sure trick or treating is not part of being a man. Going to Gordo’s, sneaking candy from the bowl in his office, and working… That is Halloween as a man. The only decorations in the shop have been snuck in by Rico, Chris, and Tanner. Gordo throws out any werewolf themed trinkets and hangings. Ox has never questioned it, his friend is a strange man. He is content to snack on the always-refilling candy and do what he must. No one expects Gordo’s shop boys to dress up for Halloween, though Rico insists on doing it anyway.

The boy at the end of the road smiles widely up at him. “You’ll be Batman.” It’s matter-of-fact and Ox blinks for a moment in confusion.

“When?”

“For Halloween.” Joe’s small hand slips into his much larger one as they walk towards the house.

He sighs. “I’m working.”

Joe’s mouth falls open in surprise. “Well, you can’t.” They’ve reached the house and Joe gives his mother a small look. “Tell Ox he has to trick-or-treat with me.”

Elizabeth laughs softly. “You cannot force Ox to do anything, though I’m surprised he is not going.” She looks at him with a small smile. “Carter and Kelly go as well, perhaps you could work with them on a cool group costume, if you are worried about standing out?”

“He’s going to be Batman,” Joe insists. “I’m going to be Robin.”

Ox tries to explain, and fails, that he needs to work that night. He tries to explain (and fails) to Gordo that he can’t work that night. Tanner finally steps in and finagles it, somehow. October 31st rolls around and a gorgeous homemade costume is carefully arranged on his bed. Maggie seems overjoyed that her son is going out, even though they’ve never been a Halloween-centric family. It’s costly and Maggie almost always had to work that night.

The cape makes him feel powerful and he strides down the lane with it flapping behind him. A smaller red and yellow blur speeds out of the other house. Joe poses proudly in his Robin costume. Behind him trail the elder Bennett brothers, dressed as the Flash and Superman. Carter gives Ox a friendly hug and Kelly smiles brightly at him.

They rake in a solid few pounds of candy and pour it out on the floor. Candy exchanges are taken seriously in the Bennett home and Ox gladly takes the candy deemed “lesser” by the others. 

Maybe he likes Halloween.

II. **vampires.**

It is tradition now. Or at least it is the second year he is doing it. 

Gordo fights him on it again. “We need you here at the shop.”

“No we don’t,” say the others all at once.

“Not that we don’t like you,” adds Chris.

“Cause we do,” from Tanner.

“But, _amigo_ , you gotta get that free candy.” Rico finishes. 

Ox loves when the boys do this, talk all together. Gordo simply sighs heavily. “Just go.”

And he does, running through town to give Joe the good news. Joe is not surprises. He treats Ox’s presence as this factual thing. Ox will be there and do these things, because Joe wants him to and expects it. How he knows Ox will always give in, Ox isn’t sure. But he always seems to pinpoint the moment his mind decides yes.

Supposedly, they are all going as vampires. “It’s ironic,” Carter says. There is a secret look exchanged among the entire family. Ox does not understand. Perhaps because vampires are pale and he is not? He just concedes. As always.

They wear high neck capes and fake teeth. Fake blood is carefully dripped from their lips. Gel is used to slick their hair back.

This year, Ox fights back on the candy exchange. He scores himself numerous king-sized bars. Mark gives him a small look of pride; Thomas a tight hug. Ox doesn’t understand their reactions but he is content to accept the love. His mother comes over towards the end of the night, tired from a shift at the diner. She attempts to ruffle his hair but is met with stiff gel. Elizabeth hands her a glass of wine and she settles happily on to the sofa with Ox. They fall asleep at the Bennett house that night.

III. **jessie.**

Ox will not change tradition, he simply wants to add on to it. But Joe is upset and Ox is confused.

“I shouldn’t interrupt Bennett time,” Jessie tells him. She always seems to understand something he does not. Her costume is draped over her arms as she leans in the doorway of his room. He is halfway dressed in his.

Ox shakes his head. “They like you.” 

“Some of them do.”

“I like you.”

“I know. I like you, too.”

“Please come with us.”

She claims she agrees only because her costume (lovingly made by Elizabeth, even though she is not family) wouldn’t make sense without his. Ox pretends it’s because he’s too handsome to say no to. Or perhaps because she loves him, he’s not sure.

This year, Ox does not match the Bennett boys. This plays a part in why Joe is so upset. He and Jessie arrive in their costumes: cowboy and cowgirl. Jessie’s nails painted black, matching her toes. Her hair carefully plated. The handkerchief around Ox’s neck feels authentic.

Joe is glowering. He wears a new Nightwing costume; apparently, Robin grows up and doesn’t need Batman anymore. Ox hadn’t known this. 

Carter tells Joe to fix his face. Joe does not.

IV. **little red riding hood, friend of the pack**

Ox knows why Gordo tears down the werewolf decorations Rico hangs up year after year. It’s his first Halloween aware of the truth of his Bennetts. First Halloween in a pack. He finds himself obsessively checking calendars this year, praying there’s no full moon near the holiday. Daily he checks, convinced someone will suddenly say “oops, full moon!” 

Luckily that moment never comes.

Carter decides their costumes this year. Now that Ox knows about the pack, he has an idea, but he won’t tell Ox what it is. Joe must not know either, or Ox would by now. Jessie definitely doesn’t know, she politely finds an excuse to not participate in Halloween this year. Ox is shocked to discover he is not sad to have Halloween be just the pack.

Elizabeth has never asked Ox for his size, yet every Halloween a perfect costume winds up on his bed. He’d never questioned it, but now he understands.

It is the 31st and Ox comes home from school. Carter rushes him home with a wicked look on his face; when he goes to his room, he finds a carefully wrapped parcel on his bed. Curiously, he unfolds it and then doubles over laughing. 

They trick-or-treat as a pack that night. Quite literally. 

“You know the secret now,” Carter tells him, waving around a furry hand.

“You run with wolves,” Kelly adds.

“Or apparently… From them,” Thomas jokes.

Joe just smiles, wide and bright. Ox pretends Jessie not being there has nothing to do with it.

Ox happily smoothes down his Little Red Riding Hood cape and hoists his basket up higher. It is empty, ready to be filled with candy. Carter to his left is dressed like Michael J Fox in _Teen Wolf._ Kelly, to his right, wears a costume from an old movie. He informs Ox it is called “The Wolfman” and it the “quintessential we-got-it-wrong” movie about werewolves. Joe is his own wolf, transformed into some shitty artist’s rendering of a werewolf, yet still strong and white.

The shop boys tease him as he passes and he knows he’ll never hear the end of it. Chris snaps a picture to give to Jessie.

Ox is content as he goes with his friends. A pack and their human.

V. **all is well, it’s halloween.**

There is this heaviness in the air. Joe ignores it determidly. It is a feeling that something is ending, something is coming crashing down. There is bad on the horizon. He squashes that feeling. It is Halloween and he has the best couple costume for himself and Ox. 

_Don’t call it a couples costume,_ he reminds himself. 

It was Carter’s words not his, anyway. He retorts that all of Carter and Kelly’s matching costumes have been couple-esque, in that case.

“Don’t be perverse,” Carter says (wickedly).

He and Ox are going to be Elizabeth and Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. It’s ironic, considering his mother’s names. The Bennetts are all about irony.

Ox doesn’t understand the joke. Elizabeth (his mother, not the character) finds it delightful. Thomas rolls his eyes good naturedly. The best part is Joe even wears a really cool dress.

Ox looks to die for in his period clothes. He also looks like he might die from discomfort of the entire situation. Joe knows where Ox would rather be, because Carter asked him to go to a party with him instead. Carter has started going places with Ox more and more. 

Joe doesn’t like it.

He likes that Ox trick-or-treats with him this year instead.

VI - **they don’t.**

Three years.

One month.

Twenty-six days.

And a lot of healing.

Thomas is still gone. Maggie is still gone. Ox is a wolf. There are still two alphas to their pack.

Everyone knows the truth about the pack and it’s beautiful fractured mess. Werewolves and humans and a witch.

Every day is Halloween in this world, Ox decides. So they break tradition. Tradition broke over those

three years

one month

and twenty-six days.

They do not trick-or-treat this year. They do not dress up. They hide away, just Joe and Ox, and continue to learn how to function with one another. As wolves they run, howling and tussling and rubbing body against body. As humans they wind themselves together in a different way. Heated mouth against heated mouth, groin against groin.

They learn and build new traditions. They feed one another candy bars, not earned from costumes but found mysteriously among their things. And they heal. Maybe in the future, they will celebrate these mundane holidays again. Ox believes they will. But it is not yet the time.

**Author's Note:**

> Chels you're the best. Hope you enjoyed my willy nilly Halloweens.


End file.
